


Monsters and Dust

by Miri1984



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Short Fics, prompt fills, whumptober2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 14:10:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 14,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20836781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miri1984/pseuds/Miri1984
Summary: Whumptober Prompt Fills for Wilde and Zolf.





	1. Shaky Hands

It shouldn’t hurt so much to look at it, sitting on the table in front of him. It’s a bow. Just an object, a thing that used to belong to someone he cared about, but it looks wrong not held in small grey hands, it looks wrong not pointed at his kneecaps, backed by righteous fury and justified exasperation. 

It looks wrong because it shouldn’t be all that’s left.

Oscar reaches out a hand towards it, and isn’t surprised to see that it’s shaking.

Warm, wide, calloused fingers close over it. “Hey,” Zolf says. “You all right?”

Oscar sniffs, blinks away moisture. “Not exactly,” he murmurs, and Zolf brings his hand to his lips, brushing against Oscar’s skin and steadying the shake with the comfort of his presence.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “He didn’t deserve it.”

“Neither of them did,” Oscar says, and he lets Zolf pull him into an embrace, and he leaves the bow on the table.


	2. Explosion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gorgeous Panda did art for this chapter and I CANNOT EVEN please check it out HERE: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/616907606673457152/666508324245733377/monstersanddust.png

The thing about facing off against an alchemist is that there is always the chance for this sort of thing to happen. The forces who attack the village have tried to take them by surprise too many times - finally realising that it’s impossible. Wilde religiously maintains the alarm barrier, even though Zolf knows it drains him, even though he can never sleep for more than four hours at a time because of it.

“There’s gotta be a more efficient way of doing this,” Zolf says, as they skirt the village for the second time that day, Wilde singing softly under his breath, weaving his hands in the spell that keeps them one step ahead of Shoin and his assassins.

Wilde throws him a look, but doesn’t stop singing until the spell is complete, dropping his hands and drawing in a long breath. 

“Please, feel free to enlighten me if you think of one,” he says, and Zolf can see the droop in his shoulders and hear the weariness in his voice. He doesn’t waste magic on prestidigitation any more, which is something, Zolf supposes, but he’s not entirely sure if that something is good or bad.

“You need to rest.”

Wilde lifts and drops one shoulder and flashes Zolf a grin. “No rest for the wicked,” he says, and Zolf feels a familiar surge of irritation at that. It’s only been a month since they’d arrived in Japan and those flashes of irritation are becoming more and more rare. Zolf isn’t sure what that means, exactly, although part of him is beginning to suspect that…

The rush of air and force comes before the sound hits him, far too loud and sudden for him to even process. The next thing he knows he’s on the ground, head ringing in a klaxon of bells that feel like knives in his skull. “Wilde?” he shouts, or tries to, but he can’t hear his own voice. He lifts his head to see Wilde, stooped but standing in front of him, casting again, from the movements of his hands.

He sees rather than hears the wave of force that goes outwards from his fingertips, sees Wilde drop to one knee as the magic takes its toll.

It hurts. It hurts a  _ lot  _ but Zolf staggers to his feet, rushing to Wilde’s side and taking his arm. Wilde looks up at him, hair mussed and falling over one eye, blood trickling from his nose, but he nods, and stands. Zolf bashes his glaive into the ground and it ignites as they both turn to face the oncoming enemies.

This isn’t the first time this has happened.

It won’t be the last.


	3. Delirium

Ryo said the fever ran through the island once every couple of years, inconvenient, but only really dangerous to the young and the elderly. Oscar was apparently healthy enough to shake it off after a day - a day when Oscar sweated even more buckets than usual in the humid Japanese air and couldn’t stand up without waves of dizziness. It wasn’t a surprise when Zolf caught it too. What was a surprise was how hard it hit him, and how quickly. One moment he was moving from chair to the doorway of the reading room, intending to help in the kitchens, the next he was teetering on his metal legs and if Oscar hadn’t been there to hook his arms under Zolf’s and help him back to the chair he would have passed out cold on the floor. 

Gods but the dwarf was a solid and heavy weight, in Oscar’s arms, his skin hot to the touch with the fever.

“All right…” Zolf said. “I’m…  _ gods  _ why is the room spinning. Do us a favour, Wilde, tell it to stop…”

“Sit tight, Zolf,” Oscar said, shaking his head. “You’re fine. Just, don’t try walking anywhere for a second.”

“‘Sfine,” Zolf slurred. “‘Mfine.” 

“Stay down, Mr Smith,” Oscar said. “I’ll get someone to help me get you to bed.”

“Not going to bed with you, Wilde.”

“Oh, emphatically not,” Oscar said. “But you are going to bed. Just wait here for a second.”

He couldn’t find Barnes anywhere and there was no way he could drag Zolf to his bedroom on his own, so he settled with gathering cool water and some cloths.

When he came back Zolf was murmuring under his breath.

“Sasha?” he said, as Oscar wrung out the cloth, dabbing it against the skin of Zolf’s neck where Oscar knew from experience the heat would be the worst.

“No,” he said, low and amused. “Definitely not.”

Zolf obviously couldn’t hear him, because he reached out a hand and clasped Oscar’s arm. “I’m so sorry I left. I’m sorry I couldn’t be what you needed.”

“I’m not Sasha, Zolf. It’s me. It’s Oscar.”

“You deserved better’n what I could give you. Both of you deserved better.”

Oscar smoothed damp hair away from Zolf’s forehead. “You’re delirious, Mr Smith.”

“It was just too much. The brains, Bertie, Campbell. The fear. I cracked. Froze up.”

“Zolf, stop.”

Oscar thought that would be enough. Zolf turned his head away and Oscar continued to bathe his too hot skin, strangely reluctant to pull away and find Barnes. He could try a healing spell, he supposed, although the effect would be temporary, and Zolf was never keen on magic being used on him without his permission.

Zolf started to murmur again, and Oscar strained to pick up the words.

“You didn’t need me anyway,” he said, and the soft, weary tone of his voice made Oscar’s breath catch in his throat. “I would have dragged you under even before you went to Rome.”

Old, familiar pain settled around Oscar’s heart. 

He found he had one of Zolf’s hands clasped in his, the cloth forgotten in the other. He swallowed, hard, then dipped the cloth back into the water, bringing it back up to the pulse point in Zolf’s neck. “It’s all right, Zolf,” he said softly. “They understood.”

Tears stood in Zolf’s eyes, deep green and shining in the candlelight. “Oscar?” he said.

Oscar squeezed Zolf’s hand. “I’m here.” 

Zolf let out a soft sigh and closed his eyes. “Thank you.” 

It was a long time before Oscar could bring himself to let go of his hand.


	4. Human Shield

Carter fires off a shot as soon as they burst into the room, and Zolf feels a sickening lurch in his stomach as he recognises the cadence of the scream, even muffled as it is by a gag.

“Howard you fucking idiot!” 

“What?” Carter says. They’ve burst into the warehouse at the edge of the island where Wilde is being kept, and Carter’s crossbow bolt is sticking out of Wilde’s shoulder, blood seeping from the wound. 

Wilde is being held by a human with remarkably quick reflexes, quick enough to dive for the hostage as soon as he heard the commotion outside and swing him in front of himself. Wilde’s eyes are wide with pain and shock and not a little irritation, but that’s to be expected whenever Carter is in eyeshot.

And crossbow range, apparently.

“Let him go,” Zolf says, the fire on his glaive burning bright in the dim room. “And we’ll let you live.”

The man shakes his head and smiles a little. Zolf realises he probably doesn’t understand and glances towards Howard, who repeats it in Japanese. The man rattles off a reply.

“He says no,” Howard says. 

“Typical,” Zolf mutters, then holds up a hand. “Oscar,  _ duck.” _

He fires a bolt of magic from the end of the glaive, hitting the man square in the face as Oscar wrenches himself out of the path. The man falls back and lets out a grunt as Howard fires his crossbow again, a solid thunk of the bolt hitting him in the chest. Zolf is already moving forward to where Oscar has fallen, his bound hands behind him, groaning around the gag.

“My hero,” he mumbles, once Zolf has removed it. 

“You’re as much of an idiot as Carter is,” Zolf says. “Getting yourself kidnapped. We’ve got too much work to do for this shit.”

“You swear because you care,” Oscar says, wincing as Zolf places his hands around the bolt, readying to pull it out.

“Fuck off, Wilde.”

Wilde smiles.


	5. Stew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one turned into fluff rather than whump but whatever.

Zolf would be the first to admit that he didn’t have the greatest self preservation instinct in the world. Fatalism had been part of his personality since he watched the mine collapse on his brother. But the steady look in the eyes of the woman with the crossbow as she pointed it resolutely at Zolf’s chest actually gave him pause.

He had more to lose, these days, he supposed.

“I suppose it’s too much to ask why you’re here?” he asked. He had to delay her for a little while. Not long. Oscar never took long. Well. Usually didn’t.

“Orders,” she said, shortly. The brief scuffle which had left them at this enpass had completely ruined the stew Zolf had been making and he was, honestly, more annoyed about that than at the looming prospect of death.

She was calculating the risk, of pulling the trigger. Stealth was really the only option when it came to attacking them here, in their home. Oscar’s wards and Zolf’s magic meant anyone skilled enough to get this far was top of their game, but he had a few tricks up his sleeve, and if she fired he was likely to be able to deflect the bolt. She knew this. He knew she knew this. Right now she was trying to work out if the payment she was going to get for this job was worth the risk of the two of them grappling.

“You really should go back to your employer and tell him it’s not worth it,” Zolf said, careful to keep his hands in sight. “This never ends well.”

She didn’t speak, but started to circle him, moving towards the doorway. Zolf kept his expression carefully blank, but she was good, and she made sure she could keep her eye on Zolf and the doorway without distractions.

It didn’t help, of course. 

The cheery tune sung in a clear baritone from outside would have been harmless, if it had come from anyone else, but the assassin obviously felt the magic behind it and whirled, readying her counterspell. That was all Zolf needed to snatch the pot full of stew and slam it into her back, distracting her enough that Oscar’s hold spell caught, even as he threw open the front door of the cottage.

“Darling, I’m home!” he said, throwing his arms wide and grinning.

“You dramatic asshole,” Zolf muttered. 

“You’ve made a mess of the kitchen again,” Oscar said, running his eyes over Zolf with something like hunger.

Zolf held up one finger and started to talk, then stopped. Oscar’s smile was tense, and once he was certain Zolf wasn’t hurt he turned his attention to the woman.

“How many times is it this month?” he asked softly.

“Third or fourth,” Zolf said. “I’m not keeping count.”

“She got further than the others.”

“I knew you’d be home in time.”

Oscar moved to Zolf’s side, threaded his fingers through Zolf’s hair and placed a soft, careful kiss on his brow. “It’s getting a little tiresome,” he said. “Should we send a more… forceful message?”

Zolf looked at the woman, whose eyes were wild. “She was just doing a job, Oscar,” he said. “No need to take it out on her.”

Oscar sucked in a breath through his nose, then let it out slowly. Then he delicately plucked the crossbow out of the woman’s hands and released the spell.

“Go home,” he said. “And tell your employer to expect a personal visit from us. Soon.”

She fled and Oscar pulled Zolf further into an embrace.

“I’m covered in stew,” Zolf protested, weakly. 

“I deserve a kiss for rescuing the princess,” Oscar murmured against his hair.

Zolf flushed in pleasure and reached up to do just that, perhaps deliberately smearing some of said stew through Oscar’s perfect hair.

“There,” he said, when they parted, and Oscar made a face at him. 

“Worth it,” he said. “Run a bath for us and I’ll reset the wards.”

“Clean the kitchen first.”

Oscar, on his way out of the room, waved a hand and sang a snatch of melody and the mess on the floor was gone. 

“Show off,” Zolf muttered, but put the pot back on the stove, unable to stop smiling.


	6. Dragged Away

It was the faint smile that gave it away. Hamid and Azu hadn’t seen Oscar for more than two years. They hadn’t seen how he’d changed, how the world collapsing around them had made him into a different person (or, Zolf thought privately, brought the person he’d been hiding for so long out into the open). The smile on Oscar’s face now was a smile from the past, from before the scar even. Superior, assured, and completely lacking in warmth.

Zolf put out a hand, stopping Hamid from moving forward. Hamid looked up at him, surprise and curiosity on his face. “What is it?” he asked.

Zolf shook his head minutely, hoping that Hamid would understand. 

“Wilde, you’ve got a little something there,” he said, nodding towards the sleeve of Oscar’s wrap around tunic. Oscar tilted his head down and looked at his wrist, then pushed the cloth a little ways up to examine the imaginary speck, exposing the skin of his wrist enough for Zolf to see the fine web of blue lines underneath.

He heard Hamid’s sharp, indrawn breath as he slammed his glaive on the ground, igniting the tip and surging forward. Oscar had been very, very clear about what to do in this situation. Under no circumstances was Zolf allowed to let him live. Under no circumstances could Oscar spread the corruption to anyone else. Under… 

Under no…

A large, pink armored hand came down on his shoulder even as Hamid shouted. “Zolf, you can’t…” Azu said. Hamid was casting something, Oscar had both his hands up ready to do the same and Zolf  _ had to get to him had to take him down had to say goodbye… _

He felt the magic shoot past him and hit what  _ used to be Wilde  _ and hold him, fast. “Zolf  _ no,”  _ Hamid said. “You don’t have to kill him we’re going to…”

“Let me go, Azu,” Zolf said, and his voice was cracked and ragged. “I know what I have to…”

Hamid’s small hands were on his chest, unafraid of the flaming glaive in his hand, unafraid of Zolf. He looked down into the halfling’s determined eyes, golden hued in the sunlight, resolute and so utterly sure he was right. 

“We’re going to cure him, Zolf,” Hamid said.

“He didn’t  _ want  _ us to cure him _ . He told me he’d do anything rather than live like this.” _

“I think we all know Wilde isn’t the best at understanding what he needs,” Azu said, softly, her grip still on him like iron. 

Zolf made a cursory effort to pull away from Azu but her grip was like iron. “So what, you’re just going to ignore his wishes?”

“We’re going to save his  _ life,  _ Zolf.”

_ It had been late at night, staring at the body of the latest infected victim, one they’d had to kill after he’d tried to rampage through the village. Oscar’s hand had tangled itself in Zolf’s, and Zolf had felt sick to the stomach. _

_ “Don’t let me do this,” Oscar had said. _

_ “I won’t.” _

Zolf’s voice cracked on a sob. “He  _ asked  _ me…”

Hamid reached up and gently cupped Zolf’s cheek. “You want him to come back, don’t you?”

Zolf pulled his face away from Hamid’s hand and made one more lunge forward. Oscar was still frozen in place by Hamid’s spell, Cel was readying to incapacitate him more permanently. Zolf wondered how many he’d already killed. 

_ Don’t let me do this. _

It was already too late.

Azu pulled him away.


	7. Isolation

They came to visit him every day. They had to, of course, to feed him. To keep his body alive, no matter how Oscar might wish otherwise.

The thing that wasn’t him ate diligently and without pleasure and Oscar railed against it with all of his willpower. Nothing he did made any difference.

He longed to talk to Hamid, to Cel, even to  _ Carter  _ when they came down to tend to the body’s needs but the thing that wasn’t him, when it spoke at all, spoke only hurtful words and taunts. It didn’t need to fool them any longer. It didn’t need to do anything other than exist and chip away at the morale of the people who had once been under his care by wearing his face and using his name.

He hurt them. He could see it plainly in Hamid’s shaking hands, in Azu’s little hitch of breath at a particularly savage jab  _ You can’t help your family, Azu, they’ll join us the same way that I did. It’s inevitable. If you try to stop us you’ll only fail. Just like you did with Sasha and Grizzop. _

Much as he longed to see Zolf’s face, Oscar couldn’t be anything but vastly relieved that he didn’t come down, that the others did not entrust Oscar’s care to him. They knew enough, now (thanks to the thing that wasn’t Oscar) about the nature of his relationship to Zolf, not to allow the dwarf access to him.

He’d tried. Gods he’d tried so hard to carry out Oscar’s wishes. And perhaps denying him access to the cell was as much to protect Oscar as it was Zolf. He was a sitting target, here, in this cell, alone, and Zolf had made him a promise.

So it was good that he didn’t come down, no matter that Oscar was beginning to forget his face, his voice, the touch of his broad, warm hands, the feel of his lips. It was good.

Until the night Zolf did appear. Limping in the anti magic field, a cane in one hand, a lantern in the other. The thing that wasn’t Oscar smiled and stood, moving to the bars, leaning against them in an horrific parody of sensuality. 

He didn’t have his glaive.

“They wouldn’t let me bring a weapon,” Zolf said.

“Were you going to kill me, lover?” Oscar’s mouth made the words and Oscar screamed in the confines of his own head.

“It’s what you wanted,” Zolf said, and his voice was flat.

_ Oh, love. _

“But you can’t do it, can you?”

Zolf took a step towards the bars. “You would have been dead weeks ago if they hadn’t stopped me.”

The body examined its fingernails, smiling smugly. “So naive. So hopeful of them to think he can be saved. But you’ve never suffered from an over abundance of hope, have you Zolf? Not even when we…”

“We have a cure,” Zolf said, cutting the thing off, voice rough and hurried. “Tomorrow you’ll be home, Oscar.”

The thing was speechless at that, and for once, Oscar felt the same. Zolf licked his lips and swallowed.

“I hope you can forgive me,” he said. “I tried. But they were right, mostly. I do want you back. I want it more than anything.”

“It won’t work,” the thing said.

“Maybe not,” Zolf replied. “But you’ll be dead either way.”

He turned, leaning heavily on the cane, and made his way back to the stairs.

_ I know you tried,  _ Oscar couldn’t say.

_ I’ve missed you so much,  _ Oscar couldn’t say.

_ I love you,  _ Oscar couldn’t say.

“You’re a fool,” the thing shouted at Zolf’s retreating back. Zolf paused and Oscar heard a small chuckle, but he did not respond.


	8. Stab Wound

Oscar blinked and sat up, the soft blanket of warmth he’d come to recognise as Zolf’s magic fading from his skin. “What happened?” he asked.

“Ambush,” Zolf grunted. “They got you four times,” he nodded to the arrows that lay scattered around them. “Then they surrounded us.”

“And we’re alive because?” 

Zolf wiggled his fingers. “Had a few tricks up my sleeve,” but his voice was ragged and Oscar reached out a hand to grasp his arm. There were corpses strewn around in the mud, and the steady rain drummed into pools and puddles of blood and other fluids scattered over a wide area. Oscar couldn’t guess at what spell Zolf had used to create so much destruction, but the grey tinge to his skin and the heaving of his breath told him that it had taken nearly all of his stamina. 

Then he noticed the blood.

“You’re wounded,” Oscar said, and Zolf nodded. He had one hand clutched over a tear in the leather under his breastplate, and blood seeped from between his fingers. Zolf jerked his head in the direction of one of the corpses, a black clad woman still clutching a wicked looking knife. 

“One last stab,” Zolf said, or tried to say, but coughed instead, and Oscar saw blood on his lips.

Ice crystalised around Oscar’s heart and he surged forward even as Zolf sank back into the mud. 

“You should have healed yourself first, you idiot,” he said.

“Couldn’t do that,” Zolf said. “You were bleeding out.”

Oscar sucked in an irritated breath. “My voice is  _ terrible  _ in this humidity,” he muttered, before starting to sing, pressing one hand to the wound in Zolf’s side, and using the other to gently cradle Zolf’s head. 

“‘Salways pretty,” Zolf murmured, as his eyes closed, and Oscar couldn’t let the melody falter, pulling together threads of magic and sinking them desperately into the torn flesh, but he felt his face flush with pleasure.

There wasn’t time to examine that feeling. There probably never would be.


	9. Shackled

The Marquess of Queensberry was not a subtle man. He’d made no secret of his hatred for Oscar back when he’d been Alfred’s lover, and he made no secret of it now. 

Oscar’s head snapped back and the ringing in his ears got louder even as his teeth closed on the inside of his cheek. He was already tasting blood, and more flowed when Queensberry hit him again. Oscar spat blood to the side and wondered how long his teeth would last if Queensberry kept this up.

“Were you planning on asking me any questions or is this just foreplay?” he asked. The shackles that kept him chained to the wall were biting into his wrists, and he resisted the urge to pull against them again. His wrists were already red raw from leaning into them. Queensberry had chained them high enough so it took a little effort to keep himself from hanging and restricting his breathing. He hadn’t slept more than a few minutes since he’d been captured and dragged down here, the pain in his wrists and the wrenching of his arms too much to get anything like rest.

Queensberry himself hadn’t decided to visit until a few minutes ago. It made sense, that it would be Queensberry sending the assassins. Of all the people Oscar had hurt and humiliated over the years, Queensberry was the most crude, the most determined, and the most brutishly stupid.

Queensberry hit him again and Oscar grunted with the pain. “Your friend isn’t coming for you,” he growled out. “You’ll pay for what you did to my son. You’ll pay for what you did to all of us.”

“Your wild assumptions about the cause of the plague would amuse me if they weren’t so utterly, provably  _ wrong  _ Johnny,” Oscar said. Queensberry punched him in the stomach this time, hard enough that Oscar retched. He was grateful he’d been nabbed before he’d eaten.

“My son is  _ dead,”  _ Queensberry said.

“Well yes. He tried to kill me. Unfortunately he wasn’t as good with a knife as I am. I  _ had  _ expected more of him.”

“He was corrupted before you killed him…”

“Yes. By the plague that nearly destroyed the entire world. The plague that I and  _ my  _ friends cured. Remember?”

“The plague that you and your friends  _ caused.” _

Oscar sighed. He was having trouble tracking where Queensberry stood. The world swam in and out of focus and he was fairly certain he was about to lose consciousness. “Might as well be arguing with a brick wall,” he said. Or tried to. Queensberry pulled back his fist for another blow. Oscar didn’t feel it land.

#

He came around to bone deep pain in his wrists, but he was lying on his back, cradled softly in the lap of someone who smelt of sandalwood and metal and woodsmoke and teryaki sauce. Zolf was carding fingers through his hair, murmuring softly. 

“Morning sunshine,” he said, smiling down at Oscar, but there was a tightness around his eyes. 

“You took your time,” Oscar said.

“Everyone’s a critic.”

“How  _ dare  _ you imply I’m a…”

Zolf put a finger on Oscar’s lips, and started a healing spell. Oscar shut his eyes and let the magic wash through him. He was safe now and there would be time for arguments later.


	10. Unconscious

Zolf was limp, collapsed against the stone wall of the cavern, his glaive sputtering and dying as it fell from nerveless fingers. Oscar couldn’t reach him easily, not in his own state. The trap had blasted all four of them across the cavern - he could hear Carter and Barnes cursing behind him, but Zolf wasn’t moving.

There was a lot of pain in his leg and he knew it wouldn’t be a great idea to put weight on it, so he heaved himself up onto his knees and crawled the few feet to where Zolf lay.

_ “Heal yourself first, you idiot,” _ he could almost hear Zolf’s words, but he had limited resources and if Zolf was hurt badly enough he would need to…

“Oscar?” Carter’s voice, from behind him in the darkness.

“Over here,” Oscar called back, as he reached Zolf, he still couldn’t see any sign of breath. He swallowed, reached out a hand to touch the skin of Zolf’s neck and...

...felt the steady thread of his pulse.

Oscar let out a shaky breath and smoothed his hand through Zolf’s hair as he began his song of healing.

“Well they’ll all know we’re here  _ now,”  _ Carter said. He liked talking over the top of Oscar’s spells because he knew Oscar couldn’t respond until he was finished.

“Shut up, Howard,” Barnes said, mildly enough. “Are you hurt Oscar?”

Oscar finished the last of his song and Zolf’s eyes fluttered open.

“My leg,” he said.

“Should have healed yourself first,” Zolf said, voice rough.

“Feels so much better when you do it, though,” Oscar said, grinning.

“Ugh,” Carter said. “You two are  _ gross.” _

Zolf looked up at Carter and raised an eyebrow. “Weren’t you supposed to be checking for traps?” he said, and Carter had the decency to look a little sheepish at that.

“These guys are good,” he said. “What can I say?”

Oscar still had one hand threaded through Zolf’s hair. He hadn’t noticed and Zolf hadn’t said anything but now Zolf was moving to sit upright and so he shifted away, reluctantly. Zolf was looking at him, head slightly tilted, a strange smile on his lips. 

“Let’s have a look at you, then,” he said, “if you like my healing so much.”


	11. Stitches

There had been a lot of times in his life when Zolf had thought _ this is the actual worst _and right now, being gripped in the too-hot claw of one of his best friends while said best friend flapped through the sky towards safety was up there in the top five of those times.

That there were four other contenders for _ this is the worst _is making Zolf angrier than he should be, but it was difficult to maintain that anger when every flap of leathery wings made the bottom drop out of his stomach and his head spin with exhaustion and blood loss.

When Hamid finally flapped to the ground, setting both Oscar and Zolf gently down before starting his transformation back into Halfling form, Zolf had lost count of the number of times he’d thrown up.

Oscar hadn’t thrown up, because Oscar was too busy holding the bits of his stomach together. A swipe from a Chimera’s claws had come close to ripping him in half and Zolf was sick with worry that the flight would kill him as surely as the beasts would have.

“No magic,” Zolf gasped, as Hamid came into view, looking once again immaculate in a three piece suit, although these days he favoured golds and bronzes over greens and purples, one more of so many changes. It had taken them everything to destroy the nest of Chimera, every last bit of their magic and skill and they would most certainly be dead if Hamid hadn’t arrived when he did.

They should have asked him in the first place, of course. But there was a certain reluctance amongst most of the non-dragon community these days to ask the sole remaining one to step in every time something went wrong.

“I’m not a meritocrat,” Hamid said, slight hurt in his voice. Over the past year it had deepened, not quite to the tones of Apophis, but Zolf sometimes felt a pang of loss for the high pitched squeak of the Halfling he used to know.

Once upon a time, it hadn’t been Zolf throwing up at every turn.

“I know,” Zolf said. “But we thought we could handle it.”

Hamid knelt next to Oscar, who blinked with glassy eyes up at him. “Lucky there’s more than one way to deal with wounds, isn’t it?” Hamid said, and rifled in his pockets to take out his needle and thread.

Zolf remembered him, stitching the sail to their boat over to Shoin’s institute, a lifetime ago. When he had seemed small and helpless. Someone to be protected.

Watching him now, making small precise movements as he sewed Oscar’s gut back together again, Zolf wondered how he’d ever thought Hamid Saleh Haroun Al-Tahan could be helpless.

“Thanks for coming,” Zolf said, roughly.

“Someone has to look out for you little people,” Hamid said, glancing up as he tied off the last of the stitches, humour and fondness glinting in warm golden eyes that no longer had any hint of brown.


	12. Don't Move

Oscar felt the click as he stepped and froze, looking down at his foot to see the depressed area of stone, half expecting to be pierced by poison darts immediately. When nothing happened he let out a slow breath, but held up one hand.

“Zolf, don’t move,” he said, voice strained in the encroaching darkness. The faint light filtering from the open door to the base was fading as the sun set, and Oscar could perhaps be forgiven for not checking as thoroughly as he could have for traps.

Zolf could see far better than Oscar could at this point, and took in the situation faster than Oscar had.

“Traps?” he said, voice soft.

“I appear to have put my foot wrong,” Oscar said, trying to keep his voice light. “Something I do so rarely it never ceases to surprise.”

“Nothing’s happened,” Zolf said. 

“Far be it for me to make predictions, but there’s a possibility something will happen as soon as I move.”

“So don’t move.”

“Do you propose I take up residence here? The decor is hardly my style.”

“Can we stop being flippant for a moment?”

“Impossible.”

Zolf let out a sigh, and Oscar smiled into the dark. He wasn’t exactly sure at what point Zolf’s exasperation had become comforting to him, but there was no denying the blind panic that had frozen him in place had started to ebb away as he spoke. 

“I can cast a barrier around you,” Zolf said, “in case whatever you’ve triggered is an arrow trap.”

“That sounds reasonable. Not particularly helpful if it’s a pit trap though.”

“What, you can’t somersault away if the floor disappears?”

“I am no Sasha, as you well know.”

The light had faded enough now that Zolf was nothing but a vague shape behind him, but Oscar could see that he was rummaging through his pack. “Here,” he said.

“Here?” Oscar said, reaching out blindly. He his hand hit Zolf’s arm and Zolf must have realised then, how blind Oscar was in the darkness, because his other hand came down on top of Oscar’s and he guided it to the rope he had retrieved from his pack. He squeezed Oscar’s fingers in reassurance for a moment before letting go and Oscar took the rope, swallowing, wondering why moisture had suddenly started to gather behind his eyes.

“Tie it around your waist,” Zolf said. “I’ll anchor you if the floor goes.”

“You should probably step back,” Oscar said.

“I was going to,” Zolf said, gruffly. “Don’t move until I say.”

“I honestly was not planning to.”

He heard Zolf move down the hallway, heard the soft mutter of his spell, felt magic engulf him. 

“Okay,” Zolf said, and Oscar lifted his foot.

There was a slight *pffff* sound and the clatter of an arrow dropping to the floor. Oscar, who hadn’t realised he’d been holding his breath, let it out in a laugh that was half hysterical.

Behind him, he heard Zolf chuckle.

“Anticlimactic,” Oscar said. “Much like my last romantic encounter.”

“You been getting frisky in the village, Oscar?” Zolf said, and his voice was tinged with relief.

“Gods no,” Oscar said. Zolf was next to him now, one hand clasping Oscar’s arm near the elbow, the other helping with the knots on the rope to untie it. “It’s been months. I’m beginning to think my preferences have shifted from beautiful people to near death situations.”

“We’re in the right place then,” Zolf said. Oscar smiled into the darkness, handing the rope back.

“Yes, I rather think we are.”


	13. Adrenaline

His heart won’t slow down. 

There should be a point where he just stops functioning. 

(There IS a point where he just stops functioning, he remembers it, remembers small grey hands lifting his head from the puddle of blood on his desk, remembers the swallowing blackness of exhaustion, remembers the threads of his thoughts scattering in the wind, impossible to catch.)

There should be a point where he just stops functioning.

There should be… 

He’s so tired. 

“You need to sleep,” Zolf says. “There’s only so much healing can do for you. You know that.”

_ If you continue like this you’re just going to die. _

His heart won’t slow down.

“Sleep is highly overrated,” he says, but oh gods he remembers the blissful blackness in the cell in the temple of Artemis, an unconsciousness so absolute that he can almost believe he will know the touch of death when it comes, and it will be familiar, and it will be _ welcome _.

“Sleep keeps you sane,” Zolf growls, putting one hand on his shoulder and _ Oscar’s heart will not slow down. _

He lets out a laugh. “Sanity hasn’t been a regular house guest here for a long time, Zolf.”

Zolf’s fingers dig into his shoulder until they hurt and Oscar is forced to face him and there is determination enough in those green eyes to match the red ones that still haunt his dreams. “Oscar,” he says.

_ Grizzop would never have called him Oscar. Not in a million years. _

Oscar takes the hand on his shoulder and moves it to his chest, presses it into him so Zolf can feel the wild jumping of his heart. He feels Zolf’s fingers twitch, sees Zolf blink and swallow. 

“Sleep isn’t happening any time soon,” Oscar says. 

Zolf gently pulls his hand away. Nods. Grips his glaive. “You let me know when it can, then,” he says, and Oscar has been so used to being alone that it takes a moment for him to recognise the feeling in his chest as _ trust. _

Oscar’s heart begins to slow down.


	14. Tear Stained

The flashbacks don’t come so often, these days. Rest and comfort and companionship - the easing of burdens - all of these do a lot to heal old wounds. 

But he has time to reflect, as well, and sometimes there is too much of it. Sometimes the memories crowd in. Worse, sometimes the memories are of the blankness, the time when he was  _ not  _ Oscar, the time when his body and his face were used to hurt the people he loved the most.

Zolf is out. He can’t remember what for, not in the midst of his panic. It doesn’t matter anyway, where he is, it only matters that he’s not there to hold Oscar’s hands and match breaths with Oscar, he’s not there to smooth fingers through Oscar’s hair and press his forehead to Oscar’s and murmur meaningless encouragements.

Oscar folds in on himself, hugging his knees to his chest and burying his face in them, desperately trying to control the sobs that are wracking his frame.

It will pass, he tells himself. It will pass, it always passes. 

_ It will pass it will pass it will pass it will… _

“Oscar?”

He lifts his head. There are wet patches on his finely tailored trousers. Salt water will bleach the cloth if he doesn’t get them laundered.

He tries to form the words to tell that to Zolf, but all that comes out is a shuddering, heaving breath. 

“Gods,” Zolf breathes. He puts the wrapped packages on the kitchen bench with exaggerated care. Hunkers down on one knee.

Oscar hadn’t realised he’d chosen to curl up in the middle of the kitchen floor. Once upon a time he would have been humiliated at making such a spectacle. 

They are well beyond humiliation, now.

“Are you with me?” Zolf asks, reaching out a hand, hesitant. 

_ Once, during an attack, Oscar had slapped his hand away and shouted, convinced if Zolf touched him Zolf would become infected, convinced that the entire damned cycle was about to start again... _

This time, Oscar almost snatches it, twining their fingers together. Zolf brings their joined hands to his lips, smooths his other hand up Oscar’s arm until he grips the back of Oscar’s neck, gently but firmly, grounding them both. 

Oscar doesn’t trust himself to speak, not yet. But he nods.

“It’s all right,” Zolf says. “We’re all right.”

Right now, Oscar doesn’t believe him. But that will pass.


	15. Scars

They have disagreements that are far more serious than this.

#

It’s ruined his smile.

It shouldn’t bother him, not as much as it does. It doesn’t bother him as much as it  _ would  _ have, a year ago, and that’s something, he supposes. Some sign of character growth, or self awareness, or sheer bloody-mindedness maybe. Perhaps the last of those is contagious, he thinks with a smile that doesn’t reach the side of his face that is tight and numb and wrong.

It’s hard not to study it, when he shaves in the morning. Perhaps with the world ending around them he could forgo that little ritual, let his beard grow out, wild and rough, but he’s never had a beard before and can’t even be sure of his own ability to grow one.

In any case he doesn’t want to start a competition in the inn, not when the winner is already so clear, no matter that Barnes’ keeps his trimmed and neat and Carter’s moustache is always so carefully waxed.

He sighs and wets his razor, tilting his chin to get the right angle in the mirror.

#

It’s made him even more beautiful.

Maybe Zolf just couldn’t deal with the perfection, beforehand. Maybe that speaks to something in him that is broken and wrong, but since the scar there’s been something so much more human in his smile, so much more genuine, that the remnants of the old animosity have all but scattered into dust.

_ Of course there are other reasons for that as well. _

He catches himself, sometimes, staring at Oscar’s face, bathed in the dim light from a candle, tracing the line of the scar from its tip to where it ends near his mouth, wondering at the journey they’ve taken to get here. 

Oscar catches him, sometimes, staring, and raises an eyebrow, or quirks his lips, and Zolf finds it almost impossible to resist the urge to lean over and kiss the line of his scar, follow it down to his lips, cradle his jaw in one hand and smooth the other through soft curls, be thankful that they have this one thing amidst the madness.

#

They have disagreements that are far more serious, of course. But this is one they can dwell in comfortably. This is one that feels permanent. This is one that frames their time together, grounds them both in reality.

#

It’s ruined his smile.

It’s made him more beautiful.

#

_ Perhaps it isn’t a disagreement at all. _


	16. Pinned Down

It’s very hard not to panic. This is, essentially, his worst nightmare. Or close to it. Funny how it keeps happening. At least this time the crushing weight is on his magical legs and not real flesh, and while Zolf can feel his feet in a weird way they don’t hurt the same way flesh does and he’s not being driven out of his head with pain.

But he doesn’t know where Hamid is. He doesn’t know where Azu and Cel are. They should have been right behind him and that makes his heart try to leap out of his throat because behind him now is nothing but collapsed rubble and dust and if they’re behind him they’re buried as surely as Zolf is pinned and unable to move.

He would rail at the gods for doing this to him again, but he and the gods stopped being on speaking terms more than a year ago.

He lies there, heartbroken and helpless, for a full day.

Footsteps approaching should have filled him with relief, instead he gears himself up for the worst. Always better, to expect the worst, because when it inevitably turns out to be true he can be pleasantly surprised.

When he recognises the shoes, he almost sobs with relief, but his throat is too dry.

“How did you find us?” he twists, looking up into a familiar face.

“Oh we were informed where you were,” Oscar says, and the relief that Zolf felt drains away in sudden, terrible knowledge.

Gods he hopes Hamid and the others weren’t buried. Gods he hopes Hamid and the others have found another way out and away. 

“When did they get you?” he asks, not expecting an answer. He doesn’t get one, just the face that used to belong to Oscar leaning over into his field of vision, head tilting as he contemplates Zolf and his situation.

Then he glances to the side, where a small figure holds a spear.

Zolf recognises the spear, and starts to struggle.

“Oh come on now, dearest,” Oscar says. “It’s not as though this was going to end any differently.” Oscar hunkers down next to him, brushes hair away from Zolf’s face, traces a finger down to his lips. 

He barely feels the spear as it jabs into his torso, but he imagines he can feel the spread of the infection branching out into his blood, fingers of blue poisoning him and turning him into something else, something he hates.

“We’ll be together again soon,” Oscar says softly, and Zolf shuts his eyes.


	17. Stay With Me

Zolf has rarely been this annoyed. Of course, the only person in the entire world who could work with Wilde is him. Of course the first thing that happens when he gets his new legs is a visit from the bastard. Of course the first thing he does is glance down at them, then back up at Zolf’s face and fucking _ smirks. _

“Did you only ask for me to annoy me?” he asks.

Zolf spreads his palms. “What can I say, I work better when I’m being spurred on by animosity.”

“At least tell me I get my own room.”

Wilde laughs. “No. You stay with me.”

“I snore.”

“Of course.”

#

“Wilde!” Zolf shouts. The man is infuriating, more reckless than Hamid ever was, unless Zolf is misremembering. The halfling had certainly never walked calmly into a group of armed bandits, smiling as though he was greeting his best friends.

“Take it easy, Zolf,” Wilde calls back. “These folk are not going to hurt us.”

Zolf grips his glaive and glares, then hears Wilde start to sing.

“You could have told me you were going to charm them,” Zolf says afterwards. 

“I’m hurt that you didn’t anticipate it, frankly. How long have we been partners?”

“Too long.”

“I’m even more hurt now.”

“Next time just stay with me, okay? You can sing a pretty song from a distance instead of right in the middle of a bunch of folk with knives.”

“I’m touched that you care.”

“Shut up.”

#

There’s so much blood. Zolf should be used to this by now. He’s seen so many friends hurt, so many friends unconscious and bleeding and close to death that it shouldn’t make his hands shake the way they do, numb at the fingertips with fear. He holds his hands over the wound and takes a breath, calling on magic. Oscar stirs, a faint moan of pain escaping from between bloodied lips.

“Stay with me, Oscar,” Zolf whispers, and brings his magic to bear. “Please.”

#

There are so many questions left to ask, so much left to organise, so many loose ends to tie up. 

“What now?” Oscar asks, and there is sadness in his eyes. Sadness that Zolf desperately wants to wipe away. 

He knows how.

Zolf steps forward. Reaches out and grasps Oscar’s hand in both of his. Brings it to his lips.

“Stay with me?” he says, and Oscar’s shoulders slump in relief and Oscar _ smiles. _

“Of course.”


	18. 18. Muffled Scream

The sound of an arrow hitting and then sinking into flesh is far more viscerally upsetting than Oscar thought it would be. Close combat is not his specialty. He isn’t  _ supposed  _ to be exposed to direct fire, isn’t supposed to be out in the field, his strengths lie in diplomacy and logistics and reams of paperwork, not facing off against another wave of mind-controlled lackies from Yoshida’s fortress.

He’s attempting to distract them enough so that Barnes and Zolf can finish them off, but his shoulder won’t work properly with an arrow buried in it and he can’t quite hit his tune and his vision seems to be going tunneled.

_ Oh dear…  _ he has time to think, before he passes out.

#

He comes to with Zolf’s hand over his mouth and a burning pit of firey pain in his shoulder.

_ What happened?  _ He asks, or tries to, but Zolf puts more pressure on his mouth an leans in close to whisper in Oscar’s ear. “Don’t. We’re out of sight but they’re still out there looking for us.”

Oscar isn’t tracking very well and really shouldn’t be liking the warm press of Zolf’s body against his, the faint smell of magic and metal and something indefinably Zolf that he’s begun to be able to recognise whenever he enters a room. Of course, he is in a _considerable_ amount of pain, and when Zolf shifts a little he can’t help but let out a muffled grunt, earning him another press of Zolf’s fingers and an irritated “shh”.

“That arrow needs to come out,” Zolf says then, still as quiet as before. “Can you be quiet?”

Oscar rolls his eyes. “Probably not,” Zolf seems to take a moment, considering. Then he shakes his head. “It’s poisoned, it needs to come out or you’re dead. Here.” He tears a piece of cloth from Oscar’s shirt, but not before removing his hand from Oscar’s mouth and giving him another stern look of warning not to make any sound. If Oscar was allowed to make noise there would be a million scathing things he could say, right now but he bites his tongue. And then he bites down on the wad of cloth Zolf stuffs in his mouth.

Five thousand  _ other  _ things occur to him that he could say right now and he really is frustrated that he can’t. 

Zolf grips the shaft of the arrow, then looks down at Oscar. “Ready?” 

Oscar nods and Zolf pulls and it’s only the cloth in his mouth that stops the scream from ringing out in the darkness, giving their position away to anyone who might be near.

Zolf is already murmuring a healing spell over the would and Oscar tries to calm his breath, reaching up to pull the cloth out of his mouth. He takes a breath, but Zolf slaps his free hand back over Oscar’s mouth.

“Pretty sure I can guess all the things you want to say right now,” he says. “Don’t.”

Oscar shuts up and lets himself be healed.


	19. Asphyxiation

They try to pull him off, but he made a promise, he’s going to keep it, and he wraps his hands around Oscar’s throat and he presses, he  _ presses.  _ He knows how this is done. He’s seen it, he’s done it before and it doesn’t matter that the throat is pale and smooth and  _ he knows its contours _ it doesn’t matter that the body underneath him writhes and moves in ways that are  _ achingly familiar  _ and it doesn’t matter  _ because Zolf’s eyes are full of the web of blue lines  _ it doesn’t matter  _ because Zolf made a promise  _ it doesn’t matter  _ because Oscar wanted this and he can’t fail him again he can’t fail anyone again there are only so many times a person can take and oh gods OH GODS…. _

They pull him off.

He fails again.


	20. Trembling

Sleeping now meant sleeping with Oscar usually wrapped octopus-like around him, long limbs stronger than Zolf remembered, or perhaps these days Oscar simply didn’t care if Zolf knew how much he needed him, needed to be grounded by him, needed Zolf’s touch and Zolf’s presence.

Sleeping was too loose a word for it, really. Actual unconsiousness was rare, instead he would lie awake with Oscar, running careful fingers through his hair while Oscar pretended, rigid and still and unnatural, sometimes for more than an hour, more than two, before Zolf’s touches could soothe him enough to relax into sleep.

Then came the anxious wait for the first of the nightmares to hit.

“You should leave me alone,” Oscar whispered to him, on the sixth night since the cure, voice shaking as he trembled against Zolf. 

Zolf didn’t ask what the nightmares were about and Oscar did not offer to tell him.

“You think I’d sleep any better if I wasn’t here with you?” Zolf murmured.

“You might  _ sleep,”  _ Oscar says, and it would be more forceful if his voice hadn’t been hoarse and thick with tears.

“Not a chance.”

“You can’t go on like this forever.”

“Isn’t that what your goblin said to you?”

A huff of laughter. “Not...not my goblin.”

Zolf pressed his lips to Oscar’s forehead. He hadn’t stopped gently carding his fingers through his hair. “Give me some other options, Oscar,” Zolf said. “Or you’re stuck with me right here.”

Oscar stilled somewhat, although a small shudder ran through him every few seconds, a residual from the panic and adrenaline of his dreams.

“I don’t want to ask,” he said, finally.

This was the old argument. Familiar, achingly so. 

“You think I’ll say no?”

“I think you won’t think you have the option.”

Zolf sat up in the bed, scooting so he was resting against the headboard. Oscar had let his embrace loosen, and Zolf encouraged him to move so his head was pillowed on Zolf’s chest, the auburn of Oscar’s hair spreading like a fan over weather-beaten, tattooed skin.

“I never do anything I’m not willing to do, Oscar,” Zolf said. “I thought you knew that about me.”

“Well if that wasn’t such a blatant lie I’d believe you,” Oscar said, but his voice is steady now and he can feel Oscar’s lips are curved in a smile against Zolf’s skin.

“I don’t lie about us,” Zolf said, more forcefully. “I won’t lie about me and you. I promised you that, along with a lot of other things.”

Oscar let out a heavy sigh. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Zolf kissed the top of Oscar’s head, and listened as his breathing evened back out into sleep. It wasn’t settled, but when he felt his own eyelids droop and sleep envelop him, he had some confidence that this time it would be undisturbed.


	21. Laced Drink

It isn’t his element, that was the excuse he could give for himself, in any case. He most certainly isn’t paying attention to who is handing him drinks, and neither is he paying attention to what’s in them. They’re all alcoholic, naturally, all far finer quality than Zolf is used to.

Oscar is holding court in a corner of the room, that’s the only way Zolf can describe it, sitting in an elaborately carved armchair, a drink in one hand, the other elegantly emphasising his words as he talks.

Zolf  _ knows  _ it’s an act. Zolf is intimately (intimately) acquainted with Oscar’s skillset, this is why he was put in charge of the rangers in the first place, why he was the one to coordinate the mission in Japan. Oscar knows people, knows how to interact, to push, to compliment with one word and criticise with another.

Perhaps the hardest thing to swallow right now is the fact that Zolf is, essentially, here as window dressing. He would have opted out, but Oscar had insisted, bought him a new suit, fussed about tying his cravat, and it had been… flattering, he supposed, although the tie was too tight and the suit was too warm under the bright lights of the chandelier. 

He surreptitiously pulls at his collar and turns to see a smiling man, holding two flutes of champagne.

“Zolf Smith?” he says, and Zolf resists the urge to snap at him. There are literally no other white bearded dwarves in the room, and everyone knows him now as Oscar’s… companion. Bodyguard. Personal physician.

There are a lot of euphemisms for what he is to Oscar and most of the time they find it pretty amusing.

The man hands him a glass and Zolf downs it, too quickly. He glances back towards Oscar, who has looked up, a slight frown between his perfect brows. He stands, takes a step forward, but the crowd around him is thick, and he can’t get any further without being rude.

The man at his side is grinning openly now, and plucks at Zolf’s elbow. 

“If you’d be so kind as to come with me,” he says, and Zolf feels calm and relaxed, suddenly. Too suddenly.

Panic tries to kick in as he is gently steered towards a door. He thinks he hears a shout from behind him, but is unable to muster the will to turn his head and see who it is.

“You’ll just be spending a little time with us,” the man says. “No need to fuss. Oscar will know what to do when he finds you gone.”

Zolf wants to swear, wants to run, but his will is gone.

_ Stupid,  _ he thinks to himself, before his brain whites out in static.


	22. Hallucination

_ They’ve only been gone a couple of days,  _ the thought winds its way through Oscar’s consciousness at least once every few seconds, the panic in his chest trying to rise every time he turns to look for Zolf in the inn, or thinks of something else he should have told Hamid before they left.

But Grizzop had only been gone a couple of days. Until Grizzop was gone forever.

His sister had only been gone a couple of days, until Isola had been gone forever.

He wants to fast forward time, wants to hang protocol and rush the island, vengeance and magic swirling around him. 

_ They’ve only been gone a couple of days. _

“You’re not sleeping again. I thought we’d fixed that.”

“You’re not real,” Oscar murmurs. He’s walking the perimeter, the way he does every four hours. The way he’s done every four hours since the end of the first attack on the inn. 

He’s used to having Zolf next to him for this particular shift. The darkest part of the night, when Zolf’s night vision made stealth easier. Tonight Oscar has drunk a potion, which sits uneasily on his stomach. The world is stark and clear and colourless and if Oscar was in a more poetic mood he might write a sonnet about how the absence of one person turns the world bleak.

He hasn’t written anything for months.

_ They’ve only been gone a couple of days. _

“Wilde you’re being an idiot,” Grizzop says. “You know they can take care of themselves.”

“So could you,” he says, then murmurs the correct tune to reinforce the alarm barrier.

“You’re still blaming yourself for that.”

“I don’t see anyone else around who bears a modicum of responsibility for getting you and Sasha killed.”

“How about the people who actually killed us?”

Oscar stops. Swallows. He knows this is an hallucination, because Grizzop’s eyes glow red in the darkness and he shouldn’t be able to see any colour at all. 

“If I sleep will you stop turning up like this?”

The goblin snorts. “Almost certainly,” he says.

Oscar’s lips twist. “So why should I want to?”

Grizzop rolls his eyes and Oscar is pretty sure the expression on his face is the exact one he’d seen before a small determined fist had made contact with his genitals, a thousand years ago, two, in a vault under Cairo. Oscar can find it in himself to chuckle as he completes his circuit. “You’re still as awful as always, Wilde.”

“I miss you too, Grizzop,” he murmurs. He’s allowed to say that, here, in the dark, to someone who’s dead and gone and never coming back.. 

_ They’ve only been gone a couple of days. _


	23. Bleeding Out

The arrows hit in quick succession, one after the other, the thud-squelch far too familiar to Zolf. There are too many people for him to even check on Oscar, although he did take a moment to curse the fool’s lack of armor. 

He’d been hesitant about using his magic ever since the legs were taken back, but when he glances over and sees that Oscar has fallen into the mud he feels a surge of anger and reaches for power.

Lightning answers.

He shouldn’t be able to do this. This is high level divine magic of the finest order, and there is no familiar touch of Poseidon as he calls forth bolts that arc out and hit the two… three…  _ five  _ remaining archers. There are screams and more thuds and Zolf would fall to his knees if his feet weren’t magically keeping him upright as it feels like his insides are being hollowed out as fuel for the magic that bursts from his hands, from all over him.

There’s a sharp, deep thrust of pain in his side and he whirls and claps both hands on the side of the head of the woman who has stabbed him and he watches as her eyes go white. She’s dead before she falls.

When it’s over, there’s silence but for the drum of the rain on the ground and the soft, ragged gasps of Oscar on the ground.

_ Oscar. _

He drops down next to him, taking in the puncture wounds. Oscar is unconscious, definitely bleeding out into the mud and dirt around him, and Zolf  _ knows  _ he has almost no magic left in him.

If he believed in his god, he would pray.

Instead, he’ll have to believe in himself.


	24. Secret Injury

He just has to get back to the base. It’s not far. He’s had far worse injuries than this and if he can just get back to base he can bandage it up or drink a potion or sleep for a week. Gods, he’d like to sleep for a week. 

Wilde is setting a faster than usual pace. That’s why he’s having so much trouble catching his breath. He still hasn’t gotten used to the legs, either, that’s probably the other reason. It’s got nothing to do with the gaping hole in his side, the one that’s leaking blood at an ever increasing rate, the one that is staining the dark brown cloth in the lining of his coat almost black.

His knee hits the ground and he only stops himself from toppling face first to follow it by slamming his hand - the one slippery with blood, in front of him. 

“Zolf?” Wilde’s voice. Zolf looks up and cannot focus on the man. He’s too tall. Too far away. “Gods,” he hears him say. “What on earth… what have you….”

Hands are on his shoulders, pushing him gently onto the ground, surprisingly strong arms stopping his head from jarring as he’s moved onto his back.

“No more magic,” Zolf manages. “Out of potions. Gotta get back to… back to…”

“You bloody idiot,” Wilde says. “I can heal you.”

Zolf manages a laugh at that. Wilde can’t heal people. Wilde’s a wizard. Not a touch of divine magic about that man. No god would go near him.

Maybe Dionysus.

Yeah Dionysus.

He’s losing it.

He’s definitely losing it because he could swear he hears Wilde start to sing.

The music is in a language Zolf doesn’t recognise, but the tune is haunting and calls to something in him, something deep in his blood. It reminds him of the sea, but not the wrathful waves of his memories, instead it feels fresh and clear and bright, as though a tune could be woven out of the beams of light that pass through waves, or the smell of sea foam in summer air.

The pain in his gut starts to fade, and Zolf can only assume this means he is dying, but instead of drifting into unconsciousness he blinks up into sunlight and shadow and Oscar leaning over him, the sun making a halo of the slight red highlights in his hair as he sings in a clear, beautiful baritone a song about water and life and love and  _ home. _

Zolf doesn’t feel tired any more and his breath starts to come easier. He swallows, his mouth so dry it feels like chewing on sand, and Wilde’s melody draws to a close, heartachingly sweet and utterly incomprehensible.

There are tears in Zolf’s eyes, as Wilde sucks in a breath and opens his eyes, smoothing a hand over the tear in Zolf’s shirt, under the breastplate where the spear had jabbed him.

The wound is closed. There is no fresh blood. “Don’t hide it from me next time,” Wilde says. “I’ve got more resources than you think.”

Zolf tries to think of something to say, but can’t quite get past the idea that he’s dead and this is Poseidon’s idea of a joke.

Bastard never did have a sense of humour.

“Come on, sailor,” Wilde says, standing up and dusting off his knees. “Let’s get you home.”


	25. Humiliation

He would never try to lie about his vanity. There were certain advantages to looking the way he did, and Oscar had never been shy of exploiting those advantages, not when he was a young boy at Trinity, not when he was a more mature and experienced man at Oxford. His looks had opened doors for him that would otherwise have been remained firmly closed, and he had always been grateful to them for that.

Then the war had happened and he’d taken a scar from someone who had once told him he was more beautiful than the stars in the sky and he had fallen in love with a dwarf whom his former friends would, if they were feeling charitable, call  _ rugged.  _ They were wrong, of course, Zolf had eyes like sea glass and full, perfect lips and cheekbones he could write sonnets about - had done, actually, although he did not offer those for publication. But he was a west-country dwarf who had been a sailor and didn’t understand etiquette and hadn’t read the right books or talked to the right people never mind that he’d saved the gods-cursed  _ world… _

Oscar had changed, but not enough, it seemed, to brush off the expressions he saw on the faces of the people at this party. Not enough to not wince at an overheard “definitely didn’t weather the war well” as he passed a former lover, absolutely not enough to stop himself from rounding on the Earl of Shrewsbury who outwardly  _ laughed  _ after loudly proclaiming Zolf  _ most surely the shortest of Oscar’s paramours, does he have a permanent crick in his back these days? _

“Oscar,” Zolf’s steady hand on his elbow stopped him from starting the spell and he looked down into a wry smile. “Don’t. I’m used to it.”

Oscar sucked a breath in through his nose. “I am going to write the most scathing critique of these people that has ever flowed from the inkpots of the press,” he said, and Zolf’s grin became lopsided and fond.

“Of course you are,” he said. 

“Are you sure I can’t cast thunderwave on this whole party?” Oscar put on his most attractive pout, and Zolf’s fond smile turned darker, his fingers on Zolf’s elbow dug in, and he shook his head.

“You’re terrible,” he said.

“But you love me.”

“Gods help me, yes.”

Oscar sucked in another breath, and squared his shoulders. The party would be his by the end of the night. 

There should never have been any doubt.


	26. Abandoned

“We can find a use for you, Mr Smith, even without legs. Tell you what, you wouldn’t know how to cook, would you?”

He  _ could _ cook.

It’s something he’d always been able to do, really. Just a talent for knowing the right spices, the right combination of vegetables to set off that mutton, or precisely how best to deal with those berries that are about to turn. 

_ There were long days in the house before he was old enough to join Feryn in the mines, where he would sit in the kitchen with his mother and watch as she added precise measurements to this, and to that, when she let him knead the bread and watch it rise, when she shared the first taste from the ladle, but he didn’t think about that any more, not when the last time he’d seen her face it had been streaked with tears and hard with grief. _

So Earheart set him up with a rolling box, a makeshift wheelchair which she and some of the gnomes on the airship set up for him. It wasn’t as good as an actual wheelchair, but it did until they picked up a proper one in Warsaw, made in Prague with some magic in the wheels that meant it didn’t squeak or stick on the kitchen floor. It was even the right height for a dwarf, not that his height was so much of a problem in a kitchen that until now had been almost exclusively staffed by gnomes.

The kitchen on the airship was bigger than the galley on a naval ship and Zolf ended up being more than efficient, propelling himself from place to place amongst the steam and the smells, far faster than he could have managed with a peg leg. There was a rhythm to it. A feeling of being useful. It almost made up for the gaping lack of something in his chest, the realisation that for all he had stood in the storm and shouted at his god, Poseidon had not believed it was worth fighting to keep him.

He made food, he kept folk alive so they could continue the fight that he’d abandoned, and that would have to be enough.

#

It was always a danger, working a kitchen in a moving vessel, and to be honest Zolf was just surprised it hadn’t happened before. Adaline, his best gnome assistant, was right in front of the stove when the airship lurched without warning, and the boiling pot of stew tipped and fell before Zolf could even shout a warning.

He acted out of instinct, slid off his chair and hauled himself to her side, muttering under his breath for power that he shouldn’t have…

...shouldn’t have…

...but did.

There was no touch of Poseidon. He hadn’t called out for his god, he’d just… reached for something that should be there, like stretching the muscles of the legs he didn’t have any more, and magic answered.

Adaline gasped as the burns on her legs faded, blinked up at him and mouthed a thank you. Jemmy and Serena rushed forward, helped Adaline to her feet, then turned to Zolf, who pulled himself up to the stumps of his knees, ignoring the pain for the moment to look at his hands in open wonder.

“You all right, boss?” Jemmy asked. 

“I need to see the Captain.”

#

He didn’t give up being a cook. He liked it. But Earhart took him with her sometimes, on Harlequin missions, and Zolf would endure the pitying looks people gave him when he wheeled himself in to a room and every now and then, if a deal went wrong, he’d blast them with magic.

It was pretty satisfying, to be honest.

He didn’t think about Hamid and Sasha and Bertie.

Not much, any way.

#

“What’s the problem?” Zolf said, one evening, when Amelia came to his room, looking grim.

“Curie’s been in contact.”

Zolf raised an eyebrow. He knew Curie was the head of the Harlequins, had known for a while, ever since Earhart had decided to trust him as back up.

“What’s she want, then? What’s it got to do with me?”

“She’s got an offer for you. Wants to meet up in Cairo.”

“An offer for me?”

Earhart looked even more grim. “You’ve been good crew, Zolf. But in the end, well. The world’s falling apart and that’s gotta take priority.”

“You’re kicking me off?”

“To, I guess. I’m kicking you to someone else. For what it’s worth I think you’ll like the offer she has for you.” Her lip twisted. “Well. Part of it.”

#

“So you’re going to give me legs,” Zolf said. “And in return you want me to partner up with Oscar Wilde again. I thought the Harlequins  _ hated  _ Wilde?”

Curie pinched the bridge of her nose. “Believe me, we’re about as pleased with this as you are, Mr Smith. But the man has resources and skills that we’re lacking, and leads that he refuses to share with us unless, and I quote, ‘You can find me the only man right now that I trust to do what’s right.’”

Zolf made a face. “He really said that?”

“He’s changed a fair bit since you last saw him, I think you’ll find.”

“Not half enough, I’ll wager.”

“Are you willing to take the deal, Mr Smith?”

He’d quite liked being a cook. 

“Sure. Fine.”

#

They fitted the legs. It took him a couple of days to get used to walking with them, they felt wrong, not part of him the way the sea legs had, although those had felt wrong too, for different reasons. These ones, at least, weren’t a gift from a capricious god. 

They hurt, at the joins, and he had to take them off to sleep. They gave him a room in the Tahan mansion after the initial surgery, and it felt wrong to be in Hamid’s house, like he was an intruder, like he was stealing from his dead friend somehow. 

He slept badly, and woke with aching knees.

#

The knock at the door didn’t exactly surprise him, he had been told to expect Wilde, after all. Zolf took a second to heave a sigh, in the middle of attaching his right leg. “Come in then,” he said, and the door opened to reveal a familiar face, a familiar tilt of the head, a familiar, long, indrawn breath.

“Hello, Mr Smith,” Oscar Wilde said. The last socket snapped and there was the faint smell of magic in the air. Zolf picked up his new glaive from the stand near his bed and stood up. 

“Hello Wilde.”

Wilde’s mouth lifted in a slight smile, but it wasn’t wry or sarcastic. Zolf thought he could even see a touch of sadness in it.

“It’s good to see you again,” he said, and Zolf blinked for a moment, thrown by the fact that this was a sentiment he actually returned. Wilde held out a hand, and Zolf remembered the last time he’d seen him, walking away amidst the fire and chaos of a city gone mad.

He reached his own hand out, and clasped Wilde’s. A new beginning, he supposed.

“You too.”


	27. Ransom

Hamid hadn’t ever seen Oscar enraged before. The foppish dandy he’d met so many years ago in London had disappeared under the weight of the simulacrum and Rome and plague and the end of the world, but anger had never been something he indulged in, not even when Zolf was trying his hardest to provoke it. In Damascus, when he had been close to being crushed under the weight of fatigue and responsibility, he’d not been furious the way he was now, just tired and, well, patronising.

Sometimes being patronised by Oscar was the only way of being sure he was the same person, underneath the domesticity, good humour and shared trauma. 

Right now he was wearing a divot in the carpet of the flat in Chelsea. They were waiting for the ransom demand, waiting for the news of where Zolf was being held. 

“It’s not your fault, Oscar,” Hamid tried, again. “These people have no scruples.”

Oscar tilted his head and glared at Hamid, stilling his endless pacing for a moment. “I usually appreciate your talent for stating the obvious, Hamid.”

The fundamentals of what made up Oscar had never changed, and never would, Hamid supposed. Most people would think he had changed a great deal. But Hamid knew that the man was the same at his core, no matter that some people thought the Oscar of old had disappeared entirely the day he’d decided to take up with an ex-pirate, west county, dwarf mercenary with the tact of a blunt weapon and the social graces of a drunk troll.

Gods, Hamid missed Zolf almost as much as Oscar obviously did.

There was a ring, some murmurings from the landlady, and footsteps on the stairs. Oscar spun to face the door with his hands clasped firmly behind his back. 

The landlady, who nodded to Hamid and smiled (he couldn’t remember her name at the moment… Janice? Deirdre? Goodness he really was slipping) before handing a letter to Oscar, who ripped it open, read it, then threw it on the ground with a growl.

Hamid stood up to retrieve it but Oscar waved a hand. “Don’t bother,” he said. “There’s an address. An amount which is… actually laughably small. And a request that I come alone.”

“You’re not going to go alone are you though,” Hamid said.

Oscar raised an eyebrow and gave Hamid a smile that was tight around the edges - almost feral. “I did ask you here for a reason.”

Hamid matched his smile and flexed one hand, the slight brass of his skin catching the light. 


	28. Beaten

Zolf hadn’t been able to breathe properly since Oscar had been gone. His chest felt tight, all the time, like a vice was squeezing him, crushing him under the weight of worry and anger. There came a point where the constant anxiety felt almost normal, the seething mass of worry something that he needed in order to keep going.  _ Keep going. Keep searching. Keep asking questions. Don’t stop. _

He could rest when he found Oscar. He could breathe when he knew he was safe.

The servants at the Queensberry estate didn’t stand a chance against Zolf, and Queensberry himself was arrogant enough in his own martial prowess not to employ muscle. Men and women fled when they saw the flames on his glaive and heard the fury in his voice, not even bothering to voice an objection to his presence. From rumours he suspected they were happy enough to see some form of retribution come down on their employer - the man was universally hated. Because he was a terrible person.

In the basement (really? The man had no imagination at  _ all)  _ he saw Queensberry, his back to Zolf (stupid) raising his hand in what was unmistakably going to be a blow. Zolf shouted and swept with his glaive, connecting with Queensberry’s torso enough to knock him off balance and onto his back. Zolf couldn’t afford a glance at Oscar and stomped towards the man, who was already scrambling to get back on his feet. Zolf skewered him through the shoulder, his glaive glowing bright and hot in the dim basement light, and Queensberry screamed.

There was a time he would have drowned him, but Zolf wasn’t that person any more, so instead he clocked the man across the head to knock him out before turning to Oscar.

He regretted not killing Queensberry immediately.

There was too much to take in and Zolf was gripped with that same panic - the panic he’d felt too often, the panic of the roof collapsing, the panic that came with crack of a snapping wooden hull in a storm, the panic of dark stench and dripping slime and creeping, inevitable doom for everything he loved. 

He dropped the glaive, rushing forward to where Oscar was slumped against the wall, held up only by the shackles on his wrists (which were red raw and bloody), head slumped on his chest, his shirt stained with blood.

He heard himself muttering under his breath  _ gods gods gods  _ and his hands shook as he reached up to unlock the shackles but he could see that Oscar was breathing, the air bubbling in his nose that was bruised and bloody and all but broken.

A groan from behind him told him he hadn’t hit Queensberry hard enough. Well.  _ That  _ could easily be fixed. 

“You’re both weak,” Queensberry gasped. Zolf spun, and stomped on the man’s ankle with all the weight of a sturdy dwarf and a metal foot and days of pent up, seething rage. He heard the snap  _ crunch _ , and the scream that Queensberry let out was viscerally satisfying.

“Where are the keys?” Zolf said, keeping his foot in place. Queensberry spat and Zolf twisted his foot, pulling out another, deeply satisfying cry, as the man scrabbled at his chest to pull out a set, throwing them weakly in Zolf’s direction. Zolf leaned into his foot one more time and Queensberry’s yell was cut off this time as he passed out from the pain.

He unlocked the shackles, cradling Oscar in his arms and sinking to the floor, murmuring the spell that would begin healing the damage that Queensberry had done. He brushed hair away from Oscar’s face, felt rage threaten to boil over again when he felt the cracked bone of his cheek, poured magic into the man he loved until he felt him stir in his arms, blinking up at him, alive and warm and whole.

“Morning sunshine,” Zolf said, and breathed properly for the first time in days.


	29. Numb

They make the arrangements around him, of course. He can’t be trusted with Oscar’s care, because it isn’t Oscar any more, and they’re too stupid to see it, too stubborn to realise that there is no cure. If they’d lived through it, all eighteen months of terror and loss and chaos, they wouldn’t be so blind, so determined and hopeful. They would have cultivated the same numbness the rest of the world had adopted, the same expectation of dread.

He watches the door to the basement. They watch the thing that isn’t Oscar. Carter and Barnes show nothing when they come up from their shifts. Carter and Barnes lived through eighteen months of this. Carter and Barnes wouldn’t have held him back in the first place, but they’re not the ones who made the promise, and Zolf won’t ask them to do it for him. He’s weak, probably, not to ask, but he’s also selfish. 

It has to be him who kills it. He has to be sure.

Hamid and Azu have a lot more difficulty. He sees Hamid emerge, after a shift guarding Oscar, pristine as always, but his voice shakes when Azu asks if he is okay, and he does not pull away when she reaches out to give him a hug.

Azu emerges holding tension in every line of her body, and Zolf doesn’t know  _ her _ , but gods he knows  _ guilt _ when he sees it. Guilt that eats you from the inside like an insidious worm, burrowing through all your defenses until you are helpless and useless and your only path left is away from the people you have failed. Azu was close to breaking with it when he first met her, in the cell that now holds what used to be Oscar, and the thing that used to be Oscar knew enough about her to hit the right sore spots, to wedge in and pry and niggle and tap.

Azu isn’t going to last much longer. 

They know that the infected have access to the surface memories of the people they used to be, and that thought almost penetrates the numbness, the thought that the thing that isn’t Oscar has access to conversations from the dead of night, whispered words between them where Zolf shared that guilt, where he let himself cry against the warm skin of Oscar’s chest, where they both grieved the people they thought they’d lost.

But it doesn’t matter. Not any more. He’ll give it another week, maybe two, before Hamid and Azu realise there’s only one solution to this problem, only one way to stop the hurt, only one way to give them all some peace.

He’ll be ready.


	30. Recovery

Once upon a time Oscar would have been better at hiding it. Once upon a time Oscar would have squared his shoulders, lifted his chin and tossed his hair and doubled down on _ being Oscar Wilde _a cloak of personality that smothered a myriad of faults. An accent here, a less than impeccable upbringing there, the hints of a slightly checkered education, a family scandal… what were those to Oscar Wilde? Nothing that couldn’t be swept up in drama and performance and spectacle. Nothing that couldn’t be deflected with flamboyance.

Once upon a time Oscar’s home was a vibrant and crowded city, not a tiny inn in a backwater village on an island in Japan. Once upon a time he’d surrounded himself with people who knew only the surface Oscar, the pretense. Now he lived in close quarters with people who had literally seen him go through hell, who had seen him stripped bare and desperate and broken.

Now he lived in close quarters with someone he loved.

He couldn’t hide it.

“Anything we can do to help, Oscar,” Hamid said, and Oscar gave him his best smile and shook his head.

“If you want to talk,” Azu’s deep, kind voice almost made him flinch. “You know where I am.”

“I have potions that can help you sleep if you like,” Cel was relentlessly cheerful, but Oscar knew full well what reliance on outside means to function could do to a person, and he politely turned them down.

Zolf said nothing. Zolf tucked up next to him in their shared bed and held him when he woke from nightmares and smoothed his hair back from his forehead and kissed him gently and it wasn’t enough.

On the fourth day, Zolf got tired of waiting.

It was mid-morning, the others were out, duties in the village, maybe, or visiting Cel, or strategically removed, somehow, and Zolf pulled him into their bedroom and pushed him, more forcefully than gently, down to sit on their bed.

“What…?” Oscar didn’t get time to finish before Zolf’s hand was tangled in his hair and he was being kissed.

_ Oh. _

“I…” he tried to talk, when he had a chance to take a breath, but Zolf’s mouth was busy at his neck, now, and his hands were smoothing down over Oscar’s shirt, finding points through the cloth that made Oscar shiver and gasp. “What…:”

“Unless…” Zolf said, between kisses “you’re going to tell me to stop…” he sucked hard at a point near Oscar’s collarbone that made Oscar yelp and arch his back, then bit down, hard enough to bruise, “shut the fuck up, Wilde.”

He wasn’t going to tell Zolf to stop. There was a familiarity to this, a grounding. A dynamic they’d worked out before Hamid and Azu had returned, a negotiation that had rules and boundaries and structure.

_ Gods _ but he needed that right now. And of course, Zolf knew that. He always knew what Oscar needed.

“You don’t have to…”

Zolf’s fingers, stronger than steel, grasped his chin and forced his face up. Zolf’s eyes were dark and his lips were parted and he was breathing heavily. “What did I say?”

Oscar’s lips twisted in an almost smile. “You told me to shut up,” he said. 

“Do I need to gag you?”

_ Oh. _“Perhaps.”

Zolf snorted, surprised, maybe, or pleased. The fingers on his chin loosened, and Zolf stroked his cheek, gently this time. “This is what you need right now,” he said. Not quite a question. But enough of one.

Oscar nodded and Zolf kissed him again, gently at first, then more passionately. Oscar closed his eyes and let himself drift, swallowed by sensation, grounded by the hands of the one person who’d felt like solid rock under his feet from the moment he’d met him, centuries ago, when the world was different.

Once upon a time Oscar would have lost himself in a crowd of faceless people who didn’t know him and didn’t care and perhaps, once upon a time he would have scattered into pieces of himself that could never be reassembled. Here and now, though, with Zolf’s fingers tangled in his hair and Zolf’s lips on his skin, he could be _ Oscar _ , and he could be _ whole. _


	31. Embrace

Oscar’s limbs are long and lanky and sharp at the corners, smooth skin stretched over not enough muscle, jutting elbows and knees that seem graceful and contained when he walks, but in bed poke and jab and prickle - much like the man’s personality. Yet since the end of the world, he’s gotten back some of the plumpness that had been worn away by care and hardship, there are places that are soft and yielding under Zolf’s hands, there are spots that make him squirm and hiss when Zolf cannot resist pressing into them with lips or fingers. Oscar’s limbs wrap around Zolf like silk ropes, gather him close and hold him tightly, enfolding and encasing him in a confinement that is the opposite of smothering, the antidote to dreams about darkness and damp and crushing, painful weight. Oscar is a spider’s web spread out against Zolf’s skin, and Zolf may be caught, but he has no desire to struggle against it, not any more. Indeed, he sometimes wonders if, like the captured insect, his initial struggles were what made him so helplessly, utterly entangled.

He can live with that. 

#

Zolf’s arms are solid with corded muscle, rough with scars and dotted with ink and hardship. Zolf holds Oscar as though he’s afraid he’ll break him (except when he doesn’t, except when Oscar begs him to try, except when pushes Oscar to his limits and praises him for passing them). It’s incredible, to Oscar, that he can be so gentle, so precise and loving. What Zolf cannot express in words he lays out so eloquently in his actions that Oscar sometimes wants to weep, at the impossibility of description, of the inadequacy of the words with which he is supposed to be skilled to capture his essence. 

When Zolf holds Oscar, Oscar feels known and loved and protected and free. When Zolf holds Oscar, the world doesn’t matter.

#

_ They’ve saved it so many times already, it can be someone else’s problem now. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done! My first ever whumptober. For curiosity's sake, most of these can be taken as (my personal) canon and in the same universe - there is a thread of story that is also in my kiss posts. If people are interested I could do a collated fic that shows where each fic comes in sequence, possibly with filler to get us from point to point. 
> 
> Going to concentrate on finishing Roof of Glass, then the next Wilde/Zolf fic will be set post campaign. Thanks so much for sticking with me on this, I had a BALL, as always.


End file.
